LATEST ARTICLES

Shlomi Eldar

Shlomi Eldar

These new methods are unlikely to deter Hamas from carrying out its Nakba Day plans. Demonstrations and clashes will take place in any event, and the only question is how many Palestinians will pay with their lives or limbs so that Hamas leaders can prove to the PLO and Fatah that the Hamas way is the right and effective one. Experience suggests that Hamas will defeat Fatah in in terms of shaping public perceptions, but that the Palestinians themselves will pay a very high price....

Andre Vltchek

Andre Vltchek

‘Entire countries are being flattened from the military bases, which Jordan is willing to host on its territory; of course, for a hefty fee. Consequently, hundreds of thousands of desperate refugees would continue to flood to this ‘island of stability in the Middle East’, bringing further tens, even hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign aid into the coffers of Amman.’ No industry, production, or hard work is really needed....

Olivia Rotter

We are teaching the world how to “love thy neighbour.” We are living proof that there is still peace in this world. I have no doubt in my mind that we will continue to inspire people to unite instead of succumbing to ancient stereotypes. So this International Women’s Day, I encourage you to look to the Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom as an example of where hope for our country lies: in celebrating our differences as well as our shared humanity,...

Ghulam Rasool Dehlvi, New Age Islam

Ghulam Rasool Dehlvi, New Age Islam

While the Salafi fatwa against the ISIS does declare the present-day Islamic caliphate as ‘illegitimate’, ‘self-imposed’ and ‘un-Islamic’, it fails to question the legitimacy of this medieval notion of Islamic caliphate which is irrelevant and antithetical to the 21st century Muslims living in the pluralistic societies. It must have stated in unequivocal terms that any demand for establishing or‘re-establishing’ the caliphate anywhere is not acceptable at any coast. But worryingly, the medieval notion of Islamic state challenges the nation sates even today. ….

John Seed, New Age Islam

John Seed, New Age Islam

The tropical Andes of Ecuador are at the top of the world list of biodiversity hotspots in terms of vertebrate species, endemic vertebrates, and endemic plants. Ecuador has more orchid and hummingbird species than Brazil, which is 32 times larger, and more diversity than the entire USA...

Khaled A Beydoun

Khaled A Beydoun

Beyond its popular cover, Islamophobia is everything from law to Hollywood misrepresentations, violent assaults on conspicuous Muslims and innocent bystanders wrongly profiled as Muslims. Islamophobia is all of this, but also far more. It is, above all, a fluidly shifting and intricate system that cannot be reduced to mere "fear or dislike" of Islam and its followers, who occupy a range of distinct stations in society and experience it differently, and for the most vulnerable, disproportionately.....

Rafia Zakaria

Rafia Zakaria

Women in Muslim countries confront the most obstacles, nearly all of them arbitrary and imposed by men. Long conditioned to expect these kinds of obstacles in their way, they learn to work extra hard, be better than the best and as perfect as possible. The hard sciences and the STEM fields in general, empirical as they are, reveal the fruits of this section of the population that knows they have to be beyond excellent to be taken seriously and to avail themselves of the same opportunities as their male counterparts....

BEST OF BEFORE ARTICLES

Michael G. Knapp

Madrasa students spend most of their day in rote memorization of the Qur’an in Arabic (this is not their native language, so few understand what they are reading) and interpreting the Hadith. Only theology is taught; there is no math, science, computer training, or secular history.34 The young men at these schools are drawn from the dire poor of the societies they come from, kept in self-contained worlds that are isolated from outside influences, and indoctrinated with a powerful, not-so-academic radical message: their highest honor and duty is to wage jihad to defend Islam from its attackers, and the United States is the chief enemy of Islam…..

Prof. Henry Francis B. Espiritu, New Age Islam

Prof. Henry Francis B. Espiritu, New Age Islam

As I step-up and deepen my readings on
Islamic spirituality, I sensed that Sufism as a philosophy and as a movement
has strong affinity with those movements that seek human authenticity and
freedom: say for example the hippie movements, the counter-culture, the Gypsy
lifestyle, and the anti-establishment movements in the 1960s and the 1970s. I
really feel that there is a strong similarity between the aspirations of the
Sufis of Islam and the hippies and the anti-establishment movements concerning
the human person’s freedom and authenticity to choose for himself how to live
one’s life in the midst of the nauseating hegemony of the society that forces
us into unthinking conformity to conventional conditioning and tyranny of the
majority opinion on how to live one’s life.

Madrileña de la Cerna

Madrileña de la Cerna

First a background on the publisher. The New Age Islam website is a progressivist Muslim online institution based in New Delhi, India. It encourages progressive and pluralist thinking among Muslims worldwide by exposing them to news analyses, academic discourses and informed opinions on a variety of social, political, theological and spiritual issues related to Islam. It also provides a platform for debate on contemporary concerns facing Muslims, such as religious extremism, terrorism, peace-making, tolerance, interfaith dialogue and inter-religious relations with other faith-based groups. It brings together reports, features, academic articles and commentaries from a range of academic and journalistic sources, as well as original scholarship on Muslim affairs by experts in Islamic studies....

Naseer Ahmed, New Age Islam

Naseer Ahmed, New Age Islam

There is therefore a vast gulf which is unbridgeable, unless the Muslims believe in the whole of the Quran, and discard the secondary sources for an explanation of the Book. “And those who are firmly grounded in knowledge say: "We believe in the Book; the whole of it is from our Lord:" and none will grasp the Message except men of understanding”. There appear to be very few people of understanding across the spectrum of the “believers” and the “disbelievers”, providing proof thereby, that the playing field is very level indeed for all, and there is little difference among the people, except their deeds. False beliefs are common to all people, and the “believers” equally blaspheme God, their Prophet and their Book with their false beliefs....

Ghulam Rasool Dehlvi, New Age Islam

Ghulam Rasool Dehlvi, New Age Islam

The
pro-government political theologians in Muslim countries have propounded a
complete political theology—an exclusivist and totalitarian theology which
undermines the democratic, moderate and progressive thoughts flourishing in the
liberal Muslim minds. Regrettably, many religionists in those countries are
falling prey to this unceasing ideology endangering their lives and
stigmatising the religion in general. Unless this retrogressive theology of
political hue is contested, there will be no way forward to progressive
thinking in Islam in the 21st century. It actually poses a direct ideological
threat to the rich spiritual traditions—unity of existence, pluralism and
multiculturalism—that Muslims have inherited in various countries.

Pervez Hoodbhoy

Pervez Hoodbhoy

So far
ideologically unchallenged, ISIS is now fast increasing its presence across
Pakistan and particularly in Balochistan. Even as it loses territory in Iraq
and Syria, its propaganda units are trying to create new generations of
religious extremists, much as they have done in Europe. Decrying IS as a rogue
movement is insufficient to reverse this trend. It is also futile to claim that
IS has nothing to do with Islam because its leadership carefully quotes supportive
holy doctrines to justify every major atrocity....

Arshad Alam, New Age Islam

Arshad Alam, New Age Islam

Instances like
Hadiya will keep repeating themselves. And no community is free from blame of
putting restrictions on movement of girls, curbing their sexuality and denying
their choice of love and marriage. Caste and religious groups have all been
guilty of stultifying women because they think that women become ‘astray’ and
bring shame to the community and family. The honour killings witnessed in many
parts of the country, and those that go unreported emanate from the same
problem: viewing women as commodities and as the repository of shame. So while
honour resides among men, shame resides in women....

Ghulam Rasool Dehlvi, New Age Islam

Ghulam Rasool Dehlvi, New Age Islam

Scores of structures have already been pulled down in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Mosques, mausoleums and other Islamic structures are being flattened by hordes of religious zealots in these ‘Islamic’ countries day in and day out. But one wonders why the self-styled Muslims’ defenders like Ansar Ghazwa-tul-Hind or other al-Qaida outfits wilfully ignore this wanton travesty of religion and history in the Pak-Afghan region. Why the bully pulpit of the Pakistani and Afghani jihad is silent on the routine attackers on mosques and shrines in Pakistan and Afghanistan? .....

Arshad Alam, New Age Islam

Arshad Alam, New Age Islam

Syed Ahmed Khan
was also indifferent to the education of Muslim women. He made no effort
whatsoever from which one can deduce that he viewed the education of Muslim
women as a desirable project. It remains a fact that women’s education was a
late starter on the campus of Aligarh. Such indifference became active
hostility when it came to modern education for lower caste Muslims. Syed Ahmed
was positively opposed to educating the Muslim lower castes which formed the
majority of Indian Muslim population. He did not think that the lower caste
Muslims possessed the required mental faculty to go for higher learning through
English language....

Muhammad Yunus, New Age Islam

Muhammad Yunus, New Age Islam

Now if a Muslim
person of this era quotes 8:60 or 9:5 or 9:13 in isolation disregarding
consecutive reconciliatory verses (8:61, 9:6) and their context specificity
(9:13) to instigate a group of his followers to commit any form of violence he
is likening himself and his followers with the Prophet of Islam and his
followers who were the direct recipients of the instructions of these verses.
But such selective appropriation of Qur’an’s message to promote violence
amounts to treacherous distortion of Qur’anic message....

By Ghulam Ghaus Siddiqi, New Age Islam

By Ghulam Ghaus Siddiqi, New Age Islam

An honest study of the holy Quran and Sunnah demonstrates the fact that terrorist groups like ISIS act in complete disagreement with the injunctions of Islam. The Quran, for example, equates killing of one person to the elimination of all mankind (5:32), and describes persecution and disorder on earth as an even worse offense (2:217). The study of the ahadith [plural of hadith in Arabic] also shows that the beloved Prophet warned us of the evolution of religious extremism and violence 1400 years ago in astonishing detail. For instance, he prophesized that a time would come when nothing would remain of the true spiritual essence of Islam except the word ‘Islam’, nothing of the Quran except its word and many “Mosques would be well-furnished but bereft of the guidance” (see the book of hadith “Mishkat Al-Masabih”).

Ghulam Rasool Dehlvi, New Age Islam

Ghulam Rasool Dehlvi, New Age Islam

Grand Mufti and the highest
Islamic authority in Syria— Shaikh Ahmad Badruddin Hassoun—maintains that he is
both “Sunni and Shiite” at the same time. "I am Sunni in practice, Shiite
in allegiance. My roots are Salafi [righteous], and my purity is Sufi
[saintly]", he said, as reported in an Arabic media outlet. But Wahhabism
is not a mainstream Islamic sect like Sunni or Shia. Rather, it is an extremist
ideology based on an exclusivist takfirist theology propounded by the medieval
theologians……..

Maulana lWahiduddin Khan, New Age Islam

Maulana lWahiduddin Khan

The only answer lies in adopting a policy of religious tolerance, and respect for other people’s convictions. Everyone is entitled to follow what they think is best and profess their belief in it. But this should not prejudice our opinions about other’s beliefs. There should be mutual respect for each other’s faiths….

Khaled Ahmed

Khaled Ahmed

Education has
produced terrorism. It sounds shocking but it is true: The kind of
religion-based education given in Pakistan. Such influence doesn’t end even
after students join engineering and medical university. Universities turn out
nuclear scientists who claim they can make electricity for the whole of
Pakistan from a single Djinn. The textbooks don’t let go of nationalism which
in Pakistan is India-centric and is useful among Pakistanis for judging each
other too because judgemental is what you become instead of being
inquisitive.....

Ghulam Ghaus Siddiqi, New Age Islam

Ghulam Ghaus Siddiqi, New Age Islam

The rulings of classical
Islamic Sharia are based on four main sources; the Quran, the Sunnah, Ijma
(Consensus) and Qiyas (analogy).All the last three sources of Islamic rulings
must be in essential accord with the holy Quran, the most basic source of Islamic
knowledge. When the holy Quran itself does not talk directly, or in details
about any certain matter, only then do the classical Islamic scholars turn to
alternative sources of Islamic rulings. In my classical Islamic studies, I
reach a conclusion that all these sources of Islamic rulings reject violent
extremism and injustice; however in this article, I am quoting only the Quranic
verses for this purpose. The number of such verses has reached sixteen.….